Guinness Celebration of Irish Music
Thebarton Theatre
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
In its eleventh year, Jon Nicholls’ touring Irish mini-festival is more of an achievement than ever. Like the Barossa Festival and Womadelaide it is a South Australian initiative which has established a format pleasingly familiar, keenly awaited, and widely regarded as a showcase of the best available.
Over a decade the Guinness Celebration has introduced audiences to talents who were already, or have become, major figures in the rapidly expanding Irish music industry. Christy Moore, Mary Black, Andy Irvine, Four Men and a Dog, Davey Spillane- all have brought their distinctive sounds. Others who, for me, have equally confirmed the gaelic gold standard include Altan, Sharon Shannon, Arty McGlynn, Maire Ni Chathasaigh and Eleanor Shanley.
In the constantly shuffling Guinness line-ups one name remains constant. Donal Lunny, co-founder of Planxty and Moving Hearts and, for some time now, elder statesman of the Dublin recording scene, has co-ordinated talent and programming for the whole shebang. Self-effacing, always generous to other musicians, Lunny has made a major contribution to the success of the event.
He also seems to be the architect of something of a paradigm shift in the 1997 model. Perhaps it is because of the unprecedented (and to me, inexplicable) success of Riverdance and its factional rival Lord of the Dance. Perhaps it is the increasingly commercial nature of international music marketing. Whatever the reason, Lunny’s celebration is far less traditional and far more revisionist this time round. Sure, there’s Ronny Drew from the rambunctious Dubliners singing McAlpine’s Fusiliers and Christy Moore’s No Passeran but the likes of Seamus Begley and Ronan Browne have been replaced by younger Cranberry-maybes like Tamalin and Lunny’s own showband Wheels of the World.
Featuring Nollaig Casey and Maire Breathnach on fiddles and some very funky uillean pipe from John McSherry, the Wheels have plenty to cruise with. But unlike say, Womad highlights, the Afro-Celt Sound System, who bring together distinctly traditional instruments with a techno mix, Lunny’s band has too little shading, and too much rhythm. Bass-heavy and using conventional percussion more than the bodhran, the Wheels sound perilously like Santana-plays-Donegal, or a Dublin version of Murph and the Magictones. This is harsh, I know, because the skill of the musicians is undeniable. But the murky mix at Thebarton seems like quite a come-down from the acoustically crisp sound at Her Majesty’s last year.
Australian singer Shane Howard, presently exploring his Irish connections on his album, Clan, sings Silvermines and a slow ballad, Gabrielle before joining with the Wheels of the World for Spirit of the Land. The band then follow with a fine instrumental, Mystic Slipjig, stylishly led by Maire Breathnach.
Ronny Drew’s rough old voice gives us Paddy Kavanagh’s If Ever You Go To Dublin in a Hundred Years or So and The Dunes, a grim Shane Macgowan song about the Famine. Later, he provides a marvellously Joyciferous recitation from that other author of the Dubliners.
Tamalin, a young Belfast band with more siblings than the Corrs, play a mix of poppy ballads and sprightly reels with John McSherry’s uillean pipes sounding splendidly like escapees from the Bar-Keys. Lead singer Tina McSherry sings a softly fetching original, In the Morning, but it is the more robust instrumental, Reconciliation, that shows the band to best effect in a set so brief that they seem to have hardly got into gear.
Singer Eimear Quinn, determined to show there is life after Eurovision, trills a warm version of Black is the Colour, marred only by a lot of Stevie Nicks shawl trailing. Steeleye Span standards, Lowlands of Holland and The Blacksmith- the former with some well-placed help from Nollaig Casey, the latter with the full engine of the Wheels of the World concludes a fine set.
Donal Lunny leads a likeable instrumental, Cavan Potholes, before introducing the flamboyant talents of Brian Kennedy. Irrepressible in a lurex shirt, Kennedy comes on like a weird cross between Bono and Barry Manilow. But his voice is extraordinary in both range and expression. Opening with the strongly republican ballad, The Four Fields he shifts to the undistinguished title song from his album A Better Man , and an assembly-line Van Morrison yodeller, Crazy Love.
Kennedy, ably supported by Calum McColl on guitar, also sings a lovely gaelic composition by, and with, Maire Breathnach, followed by the World Party anthem Put a Message in the Box.
As always, the entire retinue took the stage for the finale. All nineteen- I think I counted right- in rousing versions of Raglan Road and Ewan McColl’s Dirty Old Town -with Kennedy managing to pull focus from nearly every angle. His solo for The Wild Mountain Thyme is terrific however, matched by Eimear Quinn, and the band, under Donal Lunny’s excellent stewardship, playing like nineteen persons of one mind.
The Guinness Celebration is a great event and this year’s no less so. although I am sorry to see the traditional accordians, whistles and harps absent just at a time when acoustic miking is able to showcase them so brilliantly. And I’ve always been ambivalent about that species of sentimental pop which stalks Irish music- whether in Mary Black, or Brian Kennedy’s gaudy update of Patrick O’Hagan. But the Thebarton crowd loved this show and I loved most of it. I’d just like a bit more Altan next time, or Sharon Shannon or Ronan Browne or…
The Adelaide Review, June, 1997.